


A blue bedspread and a cup of coffee

by amour_de_tous



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Returns, Gen, Homecoming, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, or anything after that really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 10:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18569218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amour_de_tous/pseuds/amour_de_tous
Summary: After the fall of SHYDRA, Steve's searching for Bucky. Turns out, he doesn't have far to look, after all, becauseinseparable on both schoolyard and battlefieldapparently extended to coming in from the cold, too.Bucky's back--he's just not sure Steve wants him there.Steve's gonna set that to rights.





	A blue bedspread and a cup of coffee

**Author's Note:**

> See, not *everything* I write is tragic! Had to get this in before Endgame destroys me, so...here's hoping that I'm not so crushed Thursday that I can't fic anymore. Come cry with me about geriatric super soldier soft boys from Brooklyn at amour-de-tous.tumblr.com.

Bucky wasn’t going to come back.  
  
That was the reality Steve was facing. Bucky had no interest in coming in from the cold; had no interest in _Steve_. If he had, he’d be back by now. There’d have been some sign, some show that he was out there, alive. Maybe HYDRA’d gotten him again, although the thought was too unfathomable, and when Steve’s mind caught on it, it’d just blank out. Wipe; fresh, clean start.  
  
Like that damn chair.  
  
This was getting him nowhere.  
  
Scrubbing at his face, Steve stood up from where he’d been going over the Winter Soldier files, trying to parse them, trying to figure out where Bucky might have gone, where he might be _going_. Sam was doing everything he could when Steve couldn’t; he was out there chasing down a lead right now, in fact. While Steve sat here in New York, waiting for clearance to be able to leave again. He’d only gotten in last night, but he already felt like he needed to leave, needed to be _out there_ looking for Bucky.  
  
“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Steve said, because maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe out there looking wasn’t where he needed to be. Looked like it, at any rate, seeing as how Bucky was sitting in his kitchen drinking a...smoothie? Coffee? Something from Starbucks at any rate, and _why was he focused on what Bucky was sipping from a straw_ when Bucky was right there.  
  
“Steve,” Bucky said, voice low. Steve felt his eyes prickle uncomfortably--that was so much _Bucky’s_ voice that it was physically painful, a dull throb under his breastbone.  
  
“ _Buck_ ,” Steve’s voice was hoarse; moreso than Bucky’s. The sight of him, just casually sitting at Steve’s table like he belonged there ( _he did_ , a voice inside Steve’s head told him. That voice sounded an awful lot like Bucky, too).  
  
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Bucky says, and his mouth crooks up into a smile that makes Steve’s insides ache.  
  
“Kinda feels like I have. Where you been, Buck?”  
  
“Oh, here and there. Mostly there. Bucharest, Budapest, Buffalo.”  
  
“You traveling by alphabet?” Steve asks, sliding into a chair opposite Bucky. He’d expected...well, he’s not wholly sure _what_ he’d expected, except that it hadn’t been this. Maybe he’d been expecting Bucky to fight him, or to run, or be easily spooked. _Steve_ feels easily spooked.  
  
“If I were, New York wouldn’t be next on the list, I don’t think,” Bucky replies, taking a sip of his drink. “Maybe Bulchiago or Bulgarograsso or Burcei. Besides, I already did Brooklyn, long before I even got to the Bs.”  
  
Steve wrinkles his nose up, unfamiliar with all those places, but familiar enough with the way the words sound on Bucky’s tongue. “Italy? That...that where you headed next?” he asks, unable to hold Bucky’s gaze, and looking, instead, at the cup in his hands. There’s a little print out on the side of the cup; it says a bunch of words that are probably what it contains, but don’t mean anything to him, and then _Bucky_. His heart skips a beat in his chest, and he looks back up at Bucky.  
  
“Was thinking about staying stateside for awhile,” he says, which is not _I’m staying_ but certainly makes Steve bite his lip to keep from asking the next question. Doesn’t matter; seventy years apart or not, Bucky can apparently still read him like a pulp novel, and he quirks a little smile in Steve’s direction. “Planning on keeping in touch, too, if that’s what you’re not asking.”  
  
“How much in touch?” Steve wants to know, and, yes, he’s fully aware there’s an underlayer of innuendo there, but he didn’t _mean_ that. He just...desperately wants Bucky to _stay_. Wants him nearby; even if Bucky decides Brooklyn doesn’t work and goes to Manhattan or Staten Island or _Paramus_ , he doesn’t care, just somewhere close. Just wants to be able to rest his eyes on Bucky and know he’s _safe_.  
  
“Depends,” Bucky says, and for the first time Steve hears a waver in his voice. There’s something there, something under the surface. Behind the facade of peace and joviality Bucky’s put up.  
  
“What on? Better not be on whether I want you here, because I gotta tell you, Buck, that’s not a question I wanna be hearing.”  
  
The smile is back, crinkling up the corner of Bucky’s eyes, and _Jesus_ , how many times in an afternoon can Steve’s heart try to give out on him? Bucky didn’t used to have wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Steve likes them. They’re proof of life, proof that Bucky came out the other side. Proof that this isn’t just another dream that’s going to end in snow and ice and a long morning run that doesn’t do enough to exhaust his body _or_ his mind. Bucky never had crinkles beside his eyes in his dreams.  
  
“I was thinking more like it depends on whether or not you got a guest bedroom,” Bucky says, and Steve can read the relief in his tone, as well as see it in his face. Bucky _had_ been worried that Steve wouldn’t want him around, which is _stupid_. It’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard of, actually, and he’s half tempted to make some smartass remark about how Bucky really did take all the stupid with him, after all.  
  
“You trying to tell me you broke into the apartment and _didn’t_ clear the place before you made yourself at home in the kitchen?” Steve asks, carefully avoiding the word _my_ and all the connotations therein.  
  
“Hey, for all I know that room with the nice blue bedspread might be that friend of yours. What’s his name, the one with the wings you’ve been sending out to find me?”  
  
“Sam,” Steve says, and _son of a bitch, Buck_. If he knew Sam (and Steve) had been after him, then they must have come pretty close once or twice. “And no. His favourite colour’s red. I wouldn’t put a blue bedspread out for him.”  
  
“My favourite colour’s blue,” Bucky says, thoughtful, and maybe a little testing. Maybe he’s not sure of it, or maybe he’s not sure _Steve’s_ sure of it, or maybe he just wants to know outright what Steve’s saying. They’d never been too good at that, back before. They’d always couched their affection for one another in hidden terms; _jerk_ and _punk_ became placeholders for other words. A rough shake instead of a hug. _End of the line_ as a promise.  
  
“I know,” Steve says, looking Bucky straight in the eyes. The brunet takes a sip of his drink and sets the cup down, glancing out of the kitchen and to the hallway where the two bedrooms are, doorways facing one another.  
  
Maybe it’s time to stop hiding his affection. Maybe it’s time Steve got some laugh lines around his eyes, himself.  
  
“That’s why I bought it,” Steve says, because if he’s gonna be an adult about this, he’s gonna go all the way. “I want you to stay, Buck. You don’t have to. I won’t force you, I--I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. But. I want you to stay. You’ve got a place here, whether you choose to use it or not. It’ll always be here, Buck. _Always_. But. Up to you.”  
  
Bucky drains his drink, sucking noisily on the straw, and stands; Steve tries and fails not to tense up at the thought that he pushed too far, too soon. He watches Bucky throw the cup in the recycling that’s under the sink without having to open different cupboards to find it. Watches Bucky rinse his fingers off, and grab the dishtowel from its place without looking.  
  
Steve was never too good at keeping his mouth shut. It’s gotten him into more trouble over his unnaturally long life than he’d care to admit; maybe just this once it won’t be trouble he gets into, maybe it’ll be something good. “So? What’s...what’s it gonna be, pal?” he asks, sounding as nervous as he feels.  
  
“Hm? Oh, I figured I’d go check out my room,” Bucky says, and sends a blinding smile over his shoulder, right Steve’s way. Good thing he’s still sitting; Steve’s knees go to jelly at the sight of it.  
  
“Yeah?” he asks, pushing up to stand. He wants to hug Bucky, but. It can wait. They have time, now. They finally have _time_ again.  
  
“Yeah. You might wanna tell Sam he can come back from Liberia. I was never in Liberia, Steve,” Bucky says, and then he heads down the hallway and turns right into his room, and Steve thinks _finally_.  
  
_He’s home_. 


End file.
